Cow Dissection Day

Wednesday, November 02, 2011 10:34 AM

The recording is an hour and 23 minutes We had up to 40 attendees

Collaborate Recording https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/jwsdetect/playback.jnlp?psid= Link - please click the 2011-11-01.0641.D.0CEAEBBCD3AC15F59A671FF4F92804.vcr&sid=vclass link to the right

The recording will take some time to download enough for the recording the be playable, so while you wait, enjoy the still shots from the cow dissection and the pig eye dissections from that day in the images and comments below. Then use them along with the recording to get additional background as well as get to see higher resolution images that came from the still cameras. The webcam system in the online classroom must compress the video to enable it to go down the internet pipeline so some image clarity is lost in the video window of the online classroom. Slides Comments This image gives you a little bit of an idea as to the setup that we used for the live, online classroom presentation and for the hands on dissection explorations that were done after the online presentation ended. The dissection specimens came from a local farmer that slaughtered one of their cows for their own family's winter meat supply. Brenda Eatmon knew the family and asked if we could use the cow heart and lungs for a home school science. Timing was important because these are fresh, not preserved specimens, so you have to pull things together in less than a 24 hour window of time or the meat will spoil and you will have a hazardous mess on your hands (literally). We had three pig's eyes added in for good measure. :0) The setup is a wooden box with about 5 inch sides. Layers on top of that is many layers of plastic to protect the wood so that it can be used again and to make clean up as easy as drawing the sides together, tying up the sack, and disposing of the left overs. On the swing arm lamp you will see the webcam that was used for the live, online classroom presentation. There were also a wide variety of scissors, the most useful of which for an animal this size was the kitchen shears which are dedicated solely to the use of dissection. It is invaluable for the perch dissection as well. The operculum is solid bone and normal dissection scissors take forever to get through it. We began the live, online stage of the dissection by having the student's view a video of cow lungs being inflated. The links are Inflating the lungs YouTube link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX8JRZ7-3Q or Pureview of the video (no ads or video links version): http://viewpure.com/VX8JR-Z7-3Q

Human lungs are structurally very similar to

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Human lungs are structurally very similar to cow lungs. At rest, you will breathe about 14 to 16 times per minute. After exercise it could increase to over 60. Newborns breathe 40 to 50/minute. By age 5 it decreases to 25. Surface area is about the size of a tennis court. Floats in water Produces a detergent like substance to prevent surface tension in the fluid in the lungs Bifurcation of the trachea Bronchus - singular Bronchi - plural Pneumonia, asthma

Even if you are watching the Collaborate recorded version of the dissection, you will want to know how to make the webcam window larger so that you can see the dissection well. If you leave it docked, everything will be too small to see well. So grab it on up, tear it free, and use the lower corner to expand it full size. You can later move the window around as needed to see the slides on the whiteboard screen by grabbing the top bar again and, holding your left mouse button down, move it around.

About the 6 minute mark in the recording:

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About the 6 minute mark in the recording: The first task was to dissect the cow lungs. We had initially thought that the cow had one undersized lungs, but that was an error due to having the specimen delivered just minutes before we got started and we didn't have much time to get familiar with it before we needed to start. Brenda Eatmon was our scalpel wielder. She had previous experience dissecting a pig's lungs, but this was her first time dissecting cow lungs. She said that in the pig lungs you could actually feel small air sacks in the lungs, but not so in the cow lungs.

A view showing the trachea.

About the 10 min mark in the recording: There are about 300 million alveoli in a typical adult's lings. These are covered with capillaries. Gasses are exchanged between the capillaries and the alveoli. A serious lung disease associated with cigarette smoking is emphysema. The damage causes the alveoli to merge and the openings to become large and coated with carbon. The result is far less gas exchange leading to difficulty in breathing.

About the 20 minute mark:

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About the 20 minute mark: Here is the higher resolution image It didn't take long to expose the bronchus which is the large. Light-colored tube that you see opened up in the image to the left. Look closely at the lung tissue and you can also see the openings of the bronchioles in that tube as well as in the red tissue areas.

About the 29 minute mark:

As we transition from the lungs to the heart, the students were sent out to watch a video of the damage done by smoking.

You Tube version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= 2glFau9ORAY Pureview version of the video: http://viewpure.com/2glFau9ORAY

4 chambers - note that left and right can get

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4 chambers - note that left and right can get tricky. This is from the view of a person looking at the heart as a spectator. The left and right would be more normal from the perspective of the heart being in your own chest, so this one is a doctor's view style. The tip at the bottom of the heart is called the apex. It will be included in the left ventricle. The diagram shows the two sides as being roughly equivalent in size, but in reality the left ventricle is larger. That section of muscle that separates the left and right ventricle is called the septum.

It is easy to get confused about what a vein and artery is. An artery goes away from the heart and veins always come to the heart. It isn't dependent upon whether the blood is oxygenated or non-oxygenated. The pulmonary artery actually carries low oxygen blood. Note that the aorta goes in behind the heart and sends blood to the lower body and it goes up to supply oxygenated blood to the upper body.

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Blood from the tissues superior and inferior vena cava right atrium tricuspid valve right ventricle pulmonary semilunar valve pulmonary artery lungs pulmonary veins left atrium bicuspid (mitral) valve left ventricle aortic semilunar valve aorta body tissue. Those strings are the origin of the phrase " pull on my heartstrings". Those are chordae tendona. They pull the heart valves open and keep blood from backflowing.

The cow heart exterior view.

About 42 minute mark:

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About 42 minute mark: Aorta shot The heart was cut away from the lungs to make it easier to work with. As the aorta was opened up, it really shows how much blood that vessel is moving. It is the largest blood vessel in the body. The blood will flow from the heart out to the body through it. If you work with an animal as large as a cow, skip the scalpel and go for a pair of kitchen shears dedicated to dissection and not kitchen use.

The top of the heart after it has been removed from the lungs. You can see the many veins and arteries that lead in and out of the heart.

Up in the fatty area, you will find the auricle.

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Up in the fatty area, you will find the auricle. Once the fat was trimmed out of the way, the initial cut is done by following the superior vena cava into the right atrium and on down through the muscle wall to expose even the ventricle.

51 minute mark: Blood clot found in the right ventricle

The right atrium and ventricle have been

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The right atrium and ventricle have been opened up exposing the tricuspid valve that separates the two chambers. Those 'heart strings' are called chorda tendona and they will pull to open the valve during part of the heart beat cycle.

53 minute mark: Along the inner wall in the right ventricle are openings that allow the blood that is used by the heart itself to be deposited to be sent on its way to the lungs for a fresh supply of oxygen.

About 56 minute mark:

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About 56 minute mark: Now the left atrium and ventricle are opened up. This is the larger side of the heart and you can see the thicker muscles of the heart that are needed to send the blood out to the body.The valve on this side is called the mitral valve. This cow had some sort of yellow growth attached to the mitral valve. Just as on the other side, the 'heart strings' here are called chordae tendona. Follow those down to near the heart wall and you will see the muscular papilary muscle. I definitely recommend a set of kitchen shears set aside only for dissection purposes. I bought this pair for the purpose of cutting through the perch operculum for the general bio perch dissections, but the cow heart's thick, muscular walls definitely called for them as well. Doing this with a scalpel would have taken forever.

1 hour mark - valve names on the left atrium and left ventricle side

About the 1:05 hour mark:

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About the 1:05 hour mark: Next up is the pig eye dissection

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The eye as it appeared before dissection. There is protective fat and muscle tissue connected to the eye to allow smooth motion of the eye in looking in a wide variety of angles.

1:07: The optic nerve The optic nerve comes out from the back of the eye. The eyes came to use with the optic nerve pretty well trimmed down to the eye, but it was still easy to make out where it was located.

1:12 hour mark

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1:12 hour mark A scalpel or razor blade is used to make a hole in the area between the sclera (the white of the eye) and the iris (the colored portion). Then scissors are used to cut the cornea free from the eye. It is incredibly difficult to keep a firm grip on the pig eye as you give the needed push with the scalpel to make the initial incision. By pinning the eye down to the dissection mat, you can more easily stabilize the eye.

Abt 1:12 hour mark Here, Maria is giving a gentle squeeze to expel the lens and the vitrious humor. The shiny, clear stuff coming out is the lens itself. In the foreground on the dissection pad, you can see another lens that was removed from one of the previous dissections of an eye. If you are dissecting a preserved specimen, the lens will be solid and almost like a translucent rubber material. In the fresh eye, it is clear and like a firm bag of jelly-like water. It is easy to change the shape with a gentle squeeze. In the eye, there are muscles attached to this and the pull causes the lens to change shape allowing your eyes the ability to change focus from an object that is close to one that is far away.

We didn't do this during the live, online

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We didn't do this during the live, online session, but after the session was done and the kids here at the hourse got a chance to work hands-on, we explored the ability of the lens to magnify.

Abt 1:21 hr Here you can see the retina. This is the part of the eye that converts the light and color (for those organisms that can see in color) that comes in to the eye into electrical signals that get send down the optic nerve to the brain.

This we did later in the day, but I am posting it

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This we did later in the day, but I am posting it here: The retina is torn away now and it exposes the tepetum. Though most animals have tapetums, humans do not. The pig's eye that you see here has a mildly opalescent tapetum. In a cow eye, you will see a bright opalescence.

Here are some added shots from later on that day when the kids here at the house got a chance to get hands on.

You are seeing the backside of the iris here. The muscles that line it makes the pupil dilate.

Timothy Moore and Maria spent a bit over an

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Timothy Moore and Maria spent a bit over an hour exploring the lung and heart before starting their individual eye dissections.

Maria Eatmon working on her eye dissection.

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